Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 12/13-12/14/2008

12/13/1953:
The Philadelphia Eagles foil Cleveland's bid for a perfect regular season with a 42-27 victory at Connie Mack Stadium. Eagles quarterback Bobby Thomason (23-35, 331) leads several long drives and fires touchdown passes to Pete Pihos, Toy Ledbetter and Bobby Walston. After trailingn 10-0 and then 20-14, Philadelphia scores the next 28 points to win handily before a record home crowd of over 38,000.

Birthdays:
Larry Doby b. 1924
Ferguson Jenkins b. 1943
Larry Kenon b. 1952
Bob Gainey b. 1953
Sergei Fedorov b. 1969

12/14/1985:
UCLA Wins the NCAA men's soccer championship over American University of Washington, D.C., 1-0, in a record-setting eight overtimes at the Kingdome in Seattle. Andy Burke scores the winning goal for the Bruins after 166 minutes of play. (Each overtime session was 10 minutes long.) The Bruins clear edge in physical size and muscular play finally results in their first national soccer title after being runner-up to St. Louis twice in 1972-73. They'll finish 20-1-4, and the Eagles will wind up 19-3-2.

Birthdays:
Charley Trippi b. 1922
Ernie Davis b. 1939
Stan Smith b. 1946
Anthony Mason b. 1966
Billy Koch b. 1974

1996:
The Toronto Blue Jays shocked the baseball world by signing free agent pitching great Roger Clemens away from the Boston Red Sox.

"When he marched across the border to Toronto ... [he] lifted the hopes of an entire franchise and knocked the rest of the baseball world on its ear. He proved that a player's mere presence can be as important as wins and losses, as vaulable as experience or ability." -Gerry Callahan, March 31, 1997

Packers Fact:
Wide receiver Antonio Freeman was the top pass catcher for the Packers' team that won Super Bowl XXXI in the 1996 season. He had 56 receptions.

BIZARRE LIVES

In 1988, Attila Ambrus escaped from Romania to Hungary, clinging to the undercarriage of a train. What followed was a wild journey that began with his playing goalie on an ice hockey team and ended with him in jail a decade later, after he had commited a series of outlandish heists and become a folk hero. If it were a novel, Ballad of the Whiskey Robber would have been met with derisive cries of “Unbelievable! Never could have happened!” But this fabulous “catch me if you can” story really did happen.

BALLAD OF THE WHISKEY ROBBER: A TRUE STORY OF BANK HEISTS, ICE HOCKEY, TRANSYLVANIAN PELT SMUGGLING, MOONLIGHTING DETECTIVES, AND BROKEN HEARTS, by Julian Rubinstein (Little, Brown, 2004)

FEEL GOOD

Nonny Frett was born a Crabtree to a young mother, but brought up by the Fretts (sworn enemies of the Crabtrees) in a little town of 90 people. Now she’s caught “in between” loyalties, families, and homes. The book follows the ins and outs of the huge cast of characters and has many exciting plot twists, but at the center of this heartwarming Southern tale is the captivating Nonny Frett, “the most engaging woman who ever lived in the pages of a book” (Anne Rivers Siddons).

BETWEEN, GEORGIA, by Joshilyn Jackson (Warner Books, 2006)